The Appeals Court Database Project was designed to create
an extensive dataset to facilitate the empirical analysis of the votes
of judges and the decisions of the United States Courts of
Appeals. The data in this collection comprise the first phase of this
project. A random sample of cases from each circuit for each year
between 1925-1988 was coded for the nature of the issues presented,
the statutory, constitutional, and procedural bases of the decision,
the votes of the judges, and the nature... (more info)

The Appeals Court Database Project was designed to create
an extensive dataset to facilitate the empirical analysis of the votes
of judges and the decisions of the United States Courts of
Appeals. The data in this collection comprise the first phase of this
project. A random sample of cases from each circuit for each year
between 1925-1988 was coded for the nature of the issues presented,
the statutory, constitutional, and procedural bases of the decision,
the votes of the judges, and the nature of the litigants. The
variables are divided into four sections: basic case characteristics,
participation, issues, and judges and votes. There is a separate data
file (Part 2) containing the number of cases with published decisions
for each circuit/year between 1925 and 1990. These data are necessary
to weight the variables in the main data file (Part 1).

Scope of Study

Universe:
All United States Courts of Appeals decisions reported
with opinions published in the FEDERAL REPORTER for each circuit for
every calendar year between 1925-1988.

Data Types:
administrative records data

Methodology

Sample:
The sampling unit for this database is the
circuit/year. For each circuit/year from 1925 through 1960, a random
sample of 15 cases was selected. For each circuit/year from 1961
through 1988, a random sample of 30 cases was selected. Weighting data
are provided to calculate the proportion of the universe of cases
contained in each circuit/year.

Data Source:

FEDERAL REPORTER

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:1998-05-27

Version History:

2006-03-30 File CB2086.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.